


make my fingers histrionic

by Byacolate



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode 5 Spoilers, F/M, Post-Canon, Vault of the Traveler Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 21:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5106863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ECHO eye is quieter than Jack could ever be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	make my fingers histrionic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smokingsickstyle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokingsickstyle/gifts).



> Written for the prompt "write a drabble where your otp is aware of each other but don’t or can’t interact for a reason of your choice" given by smokingsickstyle. My choice takes place in a divergent plotline after the events of Tales from the Borderlands where Nisha absolutely didn't die and forms a one-woman crusade for whatever scrap of her awful boyfriend she can find. I lovingly refer to this as "canon".

A wad of cash as thick as Rhys‘ fist hits him in the chest hard and suddenly enough to send him reeling backwards. He scrambles for it out of pure reflex, but pure reflex was never his strong suit, so it falls to the floor with a sad little  pap . He doesn’t give it a second look when the stranger who threw it tips her hat from the doorway. 

 

She’s beautiful in that Pandoran way that her smile spells danger, and there’s violence even in the way she stands perfectly still.

 

“Hey, kid,” she says with a voice dark like honeyed whiskey. Or gunpowder. Or the implication of terrible, terrible harm. “You the beanpole who crashed Helios to open a vault?”

 

Her accent says _bandit_ , but the sheer amount of guns strapped to her person screams _vault hunter_ too loudly to be ignored.

 

“Uhm.” Rhys swallows. “Yes? I mean, there was… there was definitely more to the story, and it wasn’t _just_ me, and I can’t help but think, uh, beanpole is a little… a little harsh, but I - yes, I’m Rhys, yeah.”

 

Her lavender smile grows. He wishes it wouldn’t. He also wishes she hadn’t thrown enough money at him to buy a diamond pony. Everything’s off kilter between the cash and that smirk, and Rhys kind of wishes he weren’t so alone right now.

 

“Well, Rhys,” she says, leaning forward to splay her hands over the desk between them. “I think you have something that belongs to me.”

 

 

* * *

 

Nisha holds the ECHO iris up to the sun. Light reflects off of the blue surface, shining against the wall opposite her. The facilities in ghost town New Haven aren’t ideal. Whatever Jack and Wilhelm didn’t raze in their glory days, looters and bandits have long since picked the town clean. Old Haven would’ve been preferable. 

 

But Nisha will make do. 

 

“You’re a lucky son of a bitch,” she says, swiping her thumb over the surface. The light on the wall disappears. “Surprised such a jumpy little thing would keep you in his pocket. Dunno if that kid’s sentimental or stupid. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, maybe. Worked out for you either way.”

 

She lifts her thumb and tilts the eye in the sun until the reflection zips over the ceiling.

 

It’s time to get to work.

 

 

* * *

  
  


“Not into this tech shit, babe, but I’ll find a way.” She’s blown the old Doc’s garage door to smithereens, figuring more delicate, intricate technology would be tucked away here than the other abandoned remnants on this scrap pile shit heap of a town. She’d been right, of course. Blowing the door had been the easy part. 

 

As far as she’s concerned, Nisha wouldn’t know half these wires from Adam. 

 

“Unless I don’t. Could use your advice right about now. Code monkey.”

 

Maybe she should’ve kidnapped the kid too. He looked like he probably could’ve come in handy here. It was cleaner and simpler just to bribe him for the eye, and fondle her pistol at his protestation, but a kidnapping would’ve been more fun. And damned helpful.

 

“What’s done is done,” she sighs, wistful, to the eye tucked in the pocket of her jacket. “Could’ve used Wilhelm too, jackass. Shit, he’d’ve made everything easier. When I bring you back, you’re gonna help me build a time machine so I can go back and kick your ass.” 

 

A computer in the corner boots up, monitor glowing from deep within a thick layer of dust. There are at least fifteen ports in the side, none of which match the circuitry of the eye.

 

“If I don’t crush you first,” she says, kicking through piles of scrap in the vain hope that the perfect adapter will just fall into her lap. “Frustration can lead a girl to violence, Jack, and I am not a patient woman.” 

 

She can only imagine what he’d say to that as she drops to her knees and begins a more thorough search.

 

 

* * *

 

“Remember when Nakayama roped me into making you,” she cackles to the ECHO eye tucked into the low neck of her blouse. At this point, Nisha thinks she might be dustier than the bottle of bourbon between her legs. It’s been days, and all she’s found are buried guns, and disassembled Claptraps, and a cache of hidden liquor. It’s useless tech, far more suited to running mundanities of small town life than running data from an intricate device meant to function from the human brain. “Gather info for you. Whatever. Don't know why I'm asking though. How could you remember? You’re not him.”

 

She takes a long pull from the bottle, stretching her legs out before her on the floor of the old Marcus munitions office. “Well,” she says, tapping the eye fondly, “I remember when you were just an angry little infant. Monosyllabic. Obstinate. Jack loved you, of course. Thought you were hilarious.” 

 

Nisha takes another drink. It goes down too smoothly for her tastes. She needs something half as expensive and twice as strong. This - this is something Jack would like.  

 

“I never saw the interim. Just… just you, in an shitty little machine behind a glass wall, and then - the feed from Helios before it came crashing and burning back to Pandora.”

 

The eye is quieter than Jack could ever be. 

 

“Goddamn, was I surprised. Picked up the signal on an old ECHOcomm. They made you look… You looked just like him.” She snorts. “And it only took you a few hours on his space station to shatter everything he ever built, so they made you just as dumb as he was, too. That’s a cold goddamn comfort, Jack.”

 

The bottle’s almost empty. She needs another, but her head spins when she tries to stand, so she concedes to a forfeit. 

 

It will be the only one.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Jack White’s “That Black Bat Licorice”: _She writes letters like a Jack Chick comic / Just a bunch of propaganda, make my fingers histrionic / … I wanna cut out my tongue and let you hold onto it for me / ‘Cause without my skill to amplify my sounds, it might get boring_
> 
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